The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog:

Morning Folks!!

Within a year most folks won't know which way is up or down when it comes to domain investing. The voices will be all over the place and eventually you may want to put your hands over your ears and walk away. But walk to where?

Well, my advice in this coming year when confusion sets in is to come right here and read my posts and let me help you untangle the knot of confusion.

To that end you might want a get a current list of all extensions and see how many of each are registered. Then you have to discount each and every defensive domain. They mean nothing to anyone but the registries. They are not really part of the eco system because of their use or non use.

So don't be fooled by misleading this and that. Stuff that has no influence in value or need. Self serving press releases that will basically make a lot of stuff up. So when you do read these releases, read between the lines. There are going to be thousands of them to come. Many thousands. Our minds could not even absorb what is coming and then actually separate what is truly meaningful.

700 rocks. How many are precious and have long-lasting value? That is what we are about to learn.

Every extension has an infinite amount of combinations and names and that is only with trademarks. There is no limit regardless of what you hear. Just look at this story by Berkens. There is an infinite amount of domains in each and every extension. Every lawyer in the world should come to the domain industry because there is an infinite amount of work and billing. So more than anything else, it will likely open up trademarks to more abuse than ever before. Profiting on those trademarks.

It's gonna be fun tho as we all watch this clusterf*ck unfold. Like 700 different soap operas. And everyone reading this should benefit from it no matter how badly this was all thought out. 70o and who will dominate? Who will die on the vine. Consolidation is already in full force. Every domainer that does not have a domain portfolio to support themselves will eventually find jobs in these companies as domain experts. So that is just one of the things that will unfold and will be very visible.

So when you are exhausted and confused, this is the place to come to untangle the mess that is coming. You may or may not agree with my writings. 90% chance you won't agree. Maybe higher. Scares the crap outta me when too many agree. But it will be VERY hard to disagree with the questions I ask, the pitfalls I point out and the numbers that some will try to use to fool.

We each have an opinion about what is to come. If you really want to know, watch what they do don't listen to what they say.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Let's take a few minutes maybe even a few posts to untangle this clusterf*ck of what is coming and what the Myths and Facts really are. And if I don't know, I will make it up. I will come to an assumption. I will use what facts are available and at the minimum use that as the starting point because you need somewhere to start and assumptions are perfect until you can plug-in the actual facts when they unfold. And if you have been paying attention they have been unfolding every day. And if you have some parallels set up, you can already see what is coming and the stages they are coming in. Let's just say "Consolidation" will be the keyword for the first 5-10 years or more and we have already seen that happen. Or die on the vine.

Myth #1 "gTLD's are bad for the Industry."

Well it may be a mess and it may be a clusterf*ck of historical proportions, it will also bring awareness and tens of billions of dollars into our space. Normally I would say sales. But in this case, the #1 expenditure will likely be advertising and other means to bring awareness but does not necessarily result in sales that are strong enough to support. Not to mention employees, customer service, unexpected glitches. A rocky road. It costs money to pave the way and get to a smooth time. Many won't survive that journey and some already gave u before the trip even begins.

Myth #2 "gTLD's will devalue my .com's."

Well nothing could be further from the truth. It will do quite the opposite. Those that are saying that are likely buyers trying to get you to sell beneath market. How gullible. Are you paying attention to the after market? It is exploding! There is a reason for that but I won't argue the point, I will just state what happens before it happens and be on record so we can look back.

Myth #3  I am not sure what to quote here. But just an interesting observation. The gTLD's were open to everyone in the world. All the different languages. But extensions are dominated by English Words. Why?

Myth #4 "Somebody that owns a .com will want the other .whatevers."

As Page Howe articulated on DomainSherpa.com last week and I agree with 100%, he never goes downstream. In other words, if you own something other than .com then you want to grab every other extension and keep going after better and higher level domains until you get to the prize which is .com. But if you have the .com you are really not motivated to get the lower level extensions. Matter of fact, you can't wait for one of them to have a giant success.

Myth #5. "My .whatever extension does not leak traffic to the .com"

Sorry, fact beyond dispute. The evidence is overwhelming.  So overwhelming in fact that it has the potential to sink the ship. Any ship. That's a captain of a ship that believes the ocean has no shallow spots and a few leaks won't hurt anything.

Myth #6 "Google and Amazon and the big boys are in charge"

Not true. The consumer is always in charge. Everyone chases the consumer. There are some that do it really well (Apple) and have a harness on it and there are others that fail like JCPenny and are wobbling out of control. The consumer demands certain things. And when you don't give it to them, they won't give their dollars to them.

Myth #7 "The buyer sets the price and is in control of a transaction."

Come on. The seller is the only one that can press the Red Button and make a decision. The seller has only one thing he controls, his wallet and perhaps lack of funds.

Myth #8 "Reverse Domain Name Hijacking is no big deal"

REALLY?

Myth #9 "Rick and his Need, Want, Desire" does not get it.

Sorry, few have challenged Need, Want, Desire" and "Value" becomes a knockout blow. Down goes Frazier! I am just saying that many of those that are doing this are unprepared for the reality of what they are going to find out. So their only play is selling the extension. And while everyone thinks they make 5X their money with a $1 million sale of a $185k asset,  there are also many other fees and expenses and time and energy that the very people I talk about, don't count. Sorry,  It all counts!! Ignore enough important things, minimize them like a shrinking machine and eventually collapse may be the result.

Myth #10 "We will have hundreds of thousands of registrations"

That's like the Internet guy saying that getting traffic is no problem. Until he finds out it is the 2000lb gorilla in the room and there are 699 other gorillas and some are much bigger.

Myth #11 "The success or failure of those extensions that are released first will have no affect good or bad on any other extension.

I beg to differ and did an entire post on it. It the first 10 are dogs, it won't help #11. If the first 10 are winners, then  it will help #11. If it does not move the needle, it is even worse. That means nobody cares.

Like I said, it would take more than one post to go down the list. So #11 was just a replay bonus. ;-)

There will be many ways for the savvy to make money regardless of the fact that most people will lose their asses.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

So my post yesterday morning is inadequate. It touches what I see, but it is oh so much bigger. It is the collective energy that is coming and WE are the BIG winners! 1000 NEW Divisions if not separate companies. They are going to make a LOT of NOISE!!

They are going to make noise in many ways. Some of it will be just that, noise. But thru that noise there will be some that have something or their something may benefit your .com as I have described here.

There is a TIDAL WAVE coming and it is going to make a direct hit on the domain industry. If it does not keep getting delayed. Each day of delay makes a company weaker not stronger. It costs money not to sell anything. But at some point that dam is gonna BURST and when it does, the landscape will never look the same again.

Bringing in Adam Dicker to help with T.R.A.F.F.I.C. is by design. We are preparing for what is to come. We have 2 venues capable of holding THOUSANDS of attendees. Besides the current domain investors an entire new generation of domain investors are all heading this way. The competition is going to be very interesting and it will be fierce and it will heat up from there. A lot of elbows in a small industry as this "Experiment" progresses.

So you are seeing the calm before the storm. And the only reason there is calm is because of the clusterf*ck that is delaying everything. In a perfect world you certainly would want to roll things out very soon. But looks like the delay will extend into 2014. I really do enjoy watching incompetence up close. Somethings are not well thought out and when that happens it blows up in their face. How could you not see this clusterf*ck 2 years away? I think I have been writing about it for 2 years and am glad others now see that there is no other word in the English language to describe it.

But after the clusterf*ck, IF we EVER  get to that point, then things are going to move very fast and the $$$ are going to fly! It will look like 2005 on steroids. This IS the calm before the storm and to be honest, the calm has a lot of things bubbling and brewing below the surface.

All I want to make perfectly clear is anyone reading this scared that their .com values are going to go down are not paying attention and are already reacting to noise that means nothing. Now WHY am I spending so much energy writing about this NOW? Because when the flood gates open, my voice will be drowned out by THOUSANDS of others. I need to be CLEARLY on record. If I stay true to what I see, I am also likely to have an entire new generation of people who don't like me. Sorry if my thoughts and vision does not match their agenda. REALITY trumps everything. Let the chips fall where they may and I am rooting for soe successes out there. The NOISE won't make them a success. END USERS, CONTENT and DOMAIN INVESTORS will decide their fate. MANY of those extensions may actually SNUB the domain industry thinking they can make their mark solely with end users. Good luck with that strategy.

I think the biggest unknown is how many extensions will collapse or be acquired before they collapse?

That said....I wish every new gTLD the greatest of successes. Your success is our success. Even if only 1 in 1000 works, the folks reading this blog will be on it. I won't hide which, if any, I think have a chance. The birdie in the mine for me is .web. I like .web but it could easily prove to be another .net. Should that happen, many others will simply collpase. And anyone that gets a .whatever and has a success and you own the .com version, you too have a success. It's coming!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

You can see this coming a year away and you best be prepared for what is coming.

With close to 1000 new gTLD's to be sold and marketed they are all going to have to man their ships and that means collectively hiring THOUSANDS of people. Going to be very interesting how this all plays out . But make no mistake about it, within a year we are going to see a massive change in our small community. For starters, it is no longer going to be small. And it will be VERY different.

Some of you reading this will end up working for some of these companies. But please take a moment to imagine  what this will all look like and how that will change the industry we are in.Much will be good and much will not. You will have a full-time job just sorting out all that is coming.

Whether  you believe the gTLD's are going to fly or not there is going to be HUGE opportunity. It may or may not come in the way of investing in domains. The opportunities may look different. I invite ever new extension owner to come here and tell us what they see. What their vision is and why. I am more likely to buy into an extension that is well thought out and supported than one that is not. Just sayin'.

A crowded field is coming and some folks will be desperate. The delays are VERY costly. Each day that passes costs money. Weeks that pass cost more. But now we are talking months and I would not be surprised if it turned into a year or more or something very unexpected happens that plunges this entire thing into turmoil. Like a complete Clusterf*ck. Even Clusterf*cks can make you money or present great opportunity.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Talk about a SCATHING article about the new gTLD's. this baby is a blockbuster!!! How many of these "Weddings" are going to end up in death as they die on the vine? Or, maybe open up shop and be served with 100 or 1000 different lawsuits claiming this or that and as a corporation you are compelled to answer each and every one of them? How do you spell "Can of worms"? Well here is a batch jumping out of a can just as we are getting to the altar.

Mike Berkens uncovered a WHALE of a story by the NY Times yesterday and I am compelled to post about it here as well. It is stunning. It is a rebuke of what is to come. The Clusterf*ck as I have been describing it since day one. But Clusterf*ck sounds mild when Ester Dyson says it is "contributing nothing" and others use the keyword CONFUSION! Gee where have I heard that word before. Confusion. Let me think. Maybe 100 posts of mine!

"The proliferation of these suffixes seems fraught for both consumers and companies. It has the potential to confuse online searchers: .car or .cars? baby.toys or toys.baby? It could also prompt companies, at great expense, to register bunches of new brand sites defensively as a way to pre-empt cybersquatters, spoofers and fraudsters."

Some technology veterans and trademark experts view the domain expansion as largely unnecessary.

“You are creating a business, like derivatives on Wall Street, that has no value,” says Esther Dyson, a technology investor who served as the founding chairwoman of Icann. “You can charge people for it, but you are contributing nothing to the happiness of humanity.”

She went on to say,  “You are creating a business, like derivatives on Wall Street, that has no value,”.

THESE ARE VERY STRONG WORDS COMING OUT. Taking a stand like this in public is not an easy thing to do. She is courageous for saying them and it would be even more courageous to heed them.

And perhaps the biggest warning comes from  professor, Jacqueline Lipton, from University of Houston Law Center.

“The Internet address oversight body may not have considered deeply enough the larger linguistic and societal ramifications of setting off a land grab for new virtual real estate like .love or .home “It’s a private body, that is dabbling in this very delicate balance of commerce and expression online that is fraught with pitfalls.”

The entire article is here

Morning Folks!!

If you were to study the markets for antiques and collectibles you would certainly see the domain market quite differently. If you understood these industries you might understand how I see things. Something that is rare MAY have value. But something that became rare usually once had tons of that item all over the place and they slowly disappeared until the realization they were virtually gone. They become from everyday to rare and THAT is where value and growth comes from. DEMAND. Demand and limited availability causes prices to rise. This phenomenon is not controllable for the most part unless you are De Beers.

This clusterf*ck that ICANN is in charge of and the delays show how poorly thought out this entire mess is. Delays are very costly to those with new extensions. The meter is ticking and the overhead is accelerating and not a DIME is coming in. But what does ICANN care? They ain't De Beers.

And what happens when for many this is the bridge to nowhere other than collapse? How does one collapse figure into the other extensions? That will be a factor. What happens when an extension collapses? Nobody can say there will be no fallout because we just don't know.

What we do know is there will be consolidation as we already see. Some registries will make a profit. But what EXACTLY does that have to do with DOMAIN INVESTING?? Collecting maybe. But investing?

And for every successful .whatever there will be a .com counterpart swallowing up possibly a MAJORITY of their traffic and business. So I am looking forward to all this cuz I see nothing but great things because of where I am positioned. Where you are positioned. We have nothing to worry about. The poor schmuck that tries to build his empire on sand may have something to worry about.

The world is about sales and if I were to have come 18 years ago with the sole purpose of flipping for a profit, I would have been SOL pretty quickly. Markets and demand have to develop. This is like watching 1900 new hula-hoops coming to market. Instead of round they will try square and triangular. They will copy the greatest success of all time and repeat it 1900 times and everyone will become rich!

Not so fast.

Does not work quite like that.

And of course you will hear some BS releases about manufactured deals less than arm lengths deals and then some will swallow the bait. I have an entire post coming just for that.

Many domainers focus on a smaller and smaller subset of less and less targeted groups of people with lower and lower  spending power and wonder why they make no money. I just think that is a poor formula with unneeded and unwanted limits.

I PRAY one of these 1900 will break out and we have the chance for a replay. But to be honest. I think the next big extension is one that has already been around for a very long time. That extension will just get a second look because next to most of the .crap that is coming out, they look pretty damn good.

If we were in Vegas, the odds makers would not give you very encouraging numbers. The odds of success if just ONE net gTLD came to market is watered down 1900 times with 1900 different directions. And 1900 companies with many sets of problems and some will go broke. Eventually you run out of other people's money. Eventually lots of things happen as failure is exposed.

Point is, study what has become valuable in the past and you will find out what a DUD looks like. There are missing elements here. It's almost folly. Now I will exclude .Brands. They can have use but it is just that a USE! Their MAIN ADDRESS will still be Brand.com. The front door. The main Entrance. The door that can still lead to all others. Including .Brand but with few or no roads to .whatever.

Rick Schwartz

Afternoon Folks!!

So just for this insane moment, let's believe I am right about domain values of .com going through the roof within 3 years. Let's just say the vision I had is on the time-line I put on it. It's right on schedule AND I have an added bonus that I never even dreamed of that will make my vision small in comparison to what is LIKELY to happen.

See I never envisioned 1900 .whatevers coming to the market that would add fuel to a raging fire. When they crash and burn that will be the moment that .com skyrockets with this completely unexpected booster rocket really takes off. DEMAND is what skyrockets and when demand skyrockets it takes the price along for the ride!

Thank goodness GREED won over the common good! See, the threat I see is not where others see it and so they would be surprised by what I think is going on and what would constitute a GENUINE threat.

A GENUINE threat would look like this. Instead of www, there may be an abc.DOMAIN or a xxx.DOMAIN or MY.DOMAIN. without the .com. THAT my friends could become a game changer. But there might be less money in doing it that way for the architects of this clusterf*ck.

I don't think the public has been served and I think I just showed a way in which it was.

100 registrars signed up for .PW this week. Whoo-hoo!! I think 99 of yet to have their first customer yet. Do you care? Does it mean something? The only thing it means is advertising dollars for 3rd parties until the party is over cuz this baby is DOA in my book. And that makes .com more attractive not less attractive.

I am sure I did not make any friends just now. But what am I supposed to do? Go along with the music and bullshit folks that are coming here to read some reality? I would never insult my readers like that and those that feel insulted can feel that way. I wish everyone good luck and great success.

If I see a winner I will say so. If I see a loser I will do the same thing just more forcefully before folks piss away hard earned money. But it will only take a dozen or more failures to begin with that may doom the others. This is one hell of a slippery slope. The barrage of bullshit to come is going to be deafening to some of us. But there will be one place you can come and hear the unvarnished truth as I see it. Right or wrong, I am certain! :-)

But I base my vision on a whole lot of milestones, mile-markers and years plus the parallels of history and define by numbers. So that is why I would rather lease now and negotiate in 1-3 years after what I see happening, happens. We can all look back in 2016 and see a clear winner and a clear loser. Place your bets by asking the right questions and looking back to where we have already been.

Stats say 2% may survive this. That would make 38 out of 1900. Better odds with Roulette!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz

UPDATE:

Morning Folks!!

In the days ahead the new .whatevers will be revealed. Many of you will have domains that are instantly worth millions more than they are today. Millions. Now that does not mean they will recognize that fact. But water runs downhill no matter what some might believe or want to believe.

So a Huge Pizza Place opens on 59 Atlantic STREET. But you own a tiny hole in the wall pizza place at 59 Atlantic AVENUE. He advertises, you grow. He advertises more, you grow more. He gets pissed, you laugh your ass off. He gets more pissed, you laugh harder and harder and make more and more. You laugh because you know you never did anything wrong and while the other guy is pissed and it is directed at you, he should be pissed at his own actions. Not you, who did nothing and was just the beneficiary of life. You got lucky! You were then smart enough to capitalize on it. That's what you do in a capitalistic system.

You expand your business because you are doing so well and the other guy is barely surviving. The last thing you want to do is see that guy go out of business. On the other hand, if he does go out of business, he has built an incredible business for you. Maybe you will even take over his location because he never understood that he may have been able to buy your little hole in the wall before he built his place and avoided all this. Maybe it never crossed his mind. Maybe he did not know. Maybe this or maybe that. But if he could rewind, maybe that would have been the best decision. Maybe that would have made a difference and a different outcome. Maybe?? BULLSHIT! As I have stated over and over and over again, success or failure comes at the very start of any journey. Here is a perfect illustration of a guy sailing from New York to London and ending up in Africa then blaming some third party not even on the ship or connected in any way, shape or form.

Gotta love what is to come. Many are going to get angry when they discover how it really works. Whether online or in the real world. If you want to have a really good chance of success in the real world, build a hamburger stand next to the steak house. You'll do just fine.

But this is nothing new as I showed above and how about 800 numbers and 855 numbers. 800 is the .com equivalent. This is not the most vivid comparison. But if one guy is 800-OIL-CANS and the other guy is 855-OIL-CANS, the 855 guy is going to lose a percentage of traffic not only to the 800 number but in this case, his competitor.

.whatever without the dotcom will make some folks instantly rich. It truly is a lottery. Not one any of us knew would be this big or uncontrolled. But the sanctioned 'Clusterf*ck' is coming. .Property increases the value of Property.com. Period! How much? Well that depends on may factors. First whether the .Property will even become a viable extension. Of the 2000 +/- extensions coming online, I don't see more than a handful enjoying much success and I predict rapid and massive consolidation as some of these folks collapse under their own overheads.

Now let me be clear, there is always money to be made with things that don’t work. There will be a market and an aftermarket. The argument is the size and importance of that market. The viability and the longevity. The profitability and all the rest.

You can be certain that the majority of extensions will fail. That does not mean those that survive will be meaningful. I would be thrilled beyond belief to even see a potential candidate to rival .com. Possibly .web or some other generic extension that makes sense and has something to offer. But that is a tall task and you would have to have one hell of a marketing plan to pull it off. That said, you can never predict what the consumer will REJECT! I mean without some compelling original content, most folks will quickly realize that the .whatever is just another backdoor to .com and it will be over before it starts.

I know several folks we all know are going after hundreds of extensions. I don't wish any of them ill and I hope they prove me wrong. If I can identify any that I think could work or have a reason to work or a plan to work I will speak out in support. But when I have facts that say 61% leakage, I will point to that as well. To me it is a poison pill to those that don't know better. But hey, that's business. People have the freedom to make mistakes.

I always look to the history of radio, TV, AM, FM, Stereo, Telephone, Cell Phone etc. There will always be parallels.

Here is a post I made on Thanksgiving Day of 2000. An ancient post in domain years. This would be BD. Before Domaining. See if that compass lines up today. See if I could have written that post this morning. But it was clear to my eyes 12 years ago and before then. I always knew there would be great expansion. But what does it mean? That is the question and my answer then is the same as it is today.

“For those that think there are no more GOOD .coms......then the chances are you couldn't get laid in a whorehouse. :-) Just means you are not creative enough or have given up too early. :-(

For ANY other .whatever, the ONLY thing that will make it prominent is heavy advertising by MANY different companies. So far TRILLIONS have been spent on .com. Let us project .com spending for 2001. TRILLIONS!!! .net......maybe a few million, .org..............maybe $50 million On the others, your guess is as good as mine but I don't see MILLIONS. Even down the road.....they will ALWAYS want their .com version of whatever they end up with.

The more extensions that come out, the more valuable .com will be.

Look at it this way. porno.com does well. Let's say porno.tv comes along. If he spends millions on advertising........don't I benefit as the .com owner? And if he becomes big enough he may WANT if not NEED the .com version. However the reverse is not true because the value of the .tv has a much lower value than the .com. And for VERY good reason imho.

Oh well.....enough spewing for today. lol

Have a happy and safe holiday for us Pilgrims!!

Rick Schwartz

Thu Nov 23 09:53:48 2000 - 172.168.217.164 - message #7503

Folks, I see this as a straight line with detours that some take. Detours with cliffs. Detours without the .com foundation and highway to insure and protect them. The first decision is always the biggest and not having the .com of anything is a costly mistake that is a lifetime bill. So I will look at .whatever success as those limited to owners of the .com. That would make it useful for brands. I am sure .Apple will be picked up by Apple. When and if they use it or not is another story. But that has nothing to do with domainers. Apple won't be selling domains and domainers won't be investing in them. None of the brands will. So take that group right off the table.

The geo .whatevers may have the best chance. But even they might be limited to the worlds top destinations and none will be immune from traffic leakage. NONE! The only question becomes does it leak back into your business by owning the .com and being able to reclaim that traffic or does it leak to your #1 competitor as I have described above? Those that won't even address that, won't even talk about that, won't even consider that are doomed because almost all success or failure happens RIGHT NOW! The first steps. When everyone is in a rush to make decisions without considering all ramifications and that is where they crash. Then 'I' can come along and point out how one bad call brought the whole project down before it was even launched and much time, dollars and months or years of energy and life were wasted.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Afternoon Folks!!

So today I get a WIPO action from a company in Brazil I never heard of until today. What struck me was that it was one of the most generic domains I own. SaveMe.com

I hand registered this domain in 1996. Before this company was even in business or thought of. They decided to go the lawyer route and try to reverse hijack this domain that they have no claim to whatsoever. Now I am going to stick it up thier asses! :-)

But it gets better. As I am going through the attachments and this CLOWN, Márcio Mello Chaves, contacted me back in August to buy the domain name. I told them at that time “High 6 Figures”. He came back at $10k and I said not even $100k. End of that chain. There may be more, have not researched anything yet on my end. (See comment 99 for details)

The clown is actually the attorney that filed the WIPO Action. So now that I know this CLOWN, Márcio Mello Chaves is just a wolf in sheeps clothing he is a low life to me. When some LOW LIFE stoops to that level, that rubs me the wrong way and I intend to use this guy as an example along with the CHEAP PRICKS he represents. Oh, that would be himself and brother pictured below. Marcio on the left and Heitor on the right of Buscape.com.br. Guys that appear to be professionals and would not suspect them of doing bad things and so now they are EXPOSED for the WORLD to see!

Did these two CHUMPS conspire against me and my domain name to Reverse Domain Hijack Saveme.com because they own SaveMe.com.br and were too cheap or did not have the money to buy MY domain name? Now I am going to stick it up BOTH of their asses. Let's find out what they KNEW in June 2010 when they opened up shop. Are these CHUMPS going to claim they did not know the dotcom version was taken???

But more importantly to YOU, this is what I learned. Just like the .co leaked 61%, one of the documents they filed show that 43% of my traffic comes from Brazil. The traffic they might be leaking. Why?? Because this CLOWN represents SaveMe.com.br and they have a HUGE LEAK! Or so they say.

Yo Baby!! That’s what I have been talking about for years now and especially recently. Not my fault dude. Not my problem dude. There are thousands with similar problems. Talk to ICANN. The new gtld's will only make it more of a clusterfuck. No Johnny Come Lately is going to even TRY and take what I own after this. I am going to hang my hat on this action.

So Buscape.com.br aka saveme.com.br filed a WIPO today because they think that is cheaper. They think they are entiltled. Well guess what? Bad move SPORT! The value of this domain just went up. That is why dotcom is KING! So this guy with no ethics decided to try this little trick. Because of that, I will make him a poster boy so others know what is coming and how it is coming. I will be as transparent as I can be. Just like Goofoff.com and what became of a similar sitution. These morons just don't seem to learn. So they need to be educated. That only happens when the thing explodes in their face. That is unfortunate. My job is to protect every other domain I own from similar jerks. So each time I have no choice but to make them regret their actions.

There is no company on earth that should be allowed to intimidate any domain owner at any level. So Márcio Mello Chaves I am going to make you famous. You and the idiots you represent might have this all come back on you. That's before I even mess with MY domain SaveMe.com which I am sure I can use in a very effective way to illustrate what a FOOL you and your clients are. To make sure your own customers know what you folks are and how you behave. Preadators! I never initiated contact with you but if you mess and poke this lion, be prepared to explain things to everyone you know and everyone you will ever know. As they said in the 'Social Network', the Internet is in INK.

So this will never go away and will only be a search away. Bloggers will blog about your behavior and that of your client. Then customers might not think they want to do business with such a predator. Assuming you have any customers. When it spins out of control, look in the mirror. You are fucking with MY LIVELY-HOOD and that is a place that not only I will defend, but will legally SLAY anyone that gets in the way. I will do everything legally and openly, but tastefully is not a promise. I am going to stick it up your asses in the most unpleasant and disgusting way I know how in front of the world. I will always be factual. But I don't always have good taste or play by any other rules other than by what is legal. If you folks get embarrassed, so be it. If you have to explain to your family and neighbors, so be it. WIPO is public and so is everything to come.

Márcio Mello Chaves, Heitor Chaves and SaveMe.com.br.....You are going to be the poster boys that ends up protecting every dot com domain holder in the world from predators and lowlifes like you. SCUM! Márcio Mello Chaves, you and your brother just peed on the HIGH VOLTAGE ELECTRIC FENCE! Me. But you and that third rate company you represent can't afford MY domain name. Dotcom is KING! I have owned SaveMe.com for 16 YEARS and you will not STEAL it from me or anyone. You and SaveMe.com.br are just being exposed as the predators you are. Maybe those tactics work for you sometimes, not here. Not ever again. Let's see what your own customers have to say when this goes viral. You opened this can of worms. DEAL WITH IT! Here is his Linkedin Page so if you get an email from him, run!

More to come. I have a mission. :-) In the way these folks think, just go ahead and register any country code or 3rd class domain and then go after the dotcom because of some sense of entitlement to things they don't own just because it will make their business stronger or better or more competitive. So if I buy a house in Kansas with a 500 Park Avenue address, I am certainly entitled to throw out the guy in New York City if I do well according to their bent logic.

Márcio Mello Chaves of Brazil Acting in BAD FAITH!
The POSTER BOY for Reverse Domain Hijacking

What can you do? Spread the word. Save me and Save you. It's the gospel to anyone that makes a living online. How fitting to have the SaveMe.com domain name used in this landmark case. Some may say....Miraculous!!

Rick Schwartz

UPDATE: Here is the actual Complaint: You all should read this because his allegations and extreme over reaches would have a bearing on many of you.

Você simpatiza com gente que tenta dar um 'jeitinho' para tomar coisas que não lhes pertence?
Este é o caso de 2 irmãos no Brasil que estão por trás de um site relativamente novo, o SaveMe.com.br. Veja, eu possuo o domínio genérico SaveMe.com aqui nos EUA desde 1996, quando o domínio (aquilo que vem depois do www...) estava livre e eu o registrei. 16 anos mais tarde, esta empresa no Brasil parece ter optado por um caminho sujo, após registrar o domínio SaveMe.com.br, em 2010.
Agora eles querem o MEU domínio, e não querem pagar por isso!!! Eles simplesmente querem que a justiça lhes 'entregue' o domínio. Sem mesmo ter uma marca registrada do nome 'Save Me' no Brasil, quanto mais aqui nos EUA, eles decidiram entrar com uma ação contra mim e meu domínio de 16 anos. Note que, antes de entrarem com uma ação, eles fizeram ofertas pelo domínio, mas eu as rejeitei, simplesmente porque não estavam no patamar adequado, com a agravante de que não informaram corretamente quem eram (ou seja, mentiram). Eu nunca soube que eles representavam esta empresa até que esta semana recebi uma intimação. Acredito que você possa ver claramente as implicações do que eles estão tentando fazer, pois eles não têm quaisquer direitos sobre aquilo que não lhes pertence.

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Do you like people that try and take things that don't belong to them?

Such is the case with 2 brothers in Brazil that seem to run a fairly new site SaveMe.com.br
See, I own the generic domain name here in the USA SaveMe.com since 1996 when I hand registered it. 15 years later this company in Brazil seems to have hit pay dirt after registering SaveMe.com.br. in 2010.

Now they want MY domain name and they don't want to pay fair market value. They want the courts to just give it to them. Without even a trademark in Brazil let alone the USA, they have decided to file a suit against me and my domain of 16 years. See I refused their offers because they simply were not in the ballpark plus he misrepresented who he was. I never knew he represented this company until this week when I got the papers. I think you can clearly see the implications and that they have no rights to what does not belong to them.

If you ever use this company, you might want to tell them not to try and take things that don't belong to them.

3/19/2012 UPDATE:

Let's see if he responds or ABANDONS this suit. We will know in 5 days.

'In accordance with Rules, Paragraph 4(b), you are hereby notified of the following formal deficiency with your Complaint:

(1) The text below section (C) of the Complaint, with the emboldened heading “Bad Faith in the Domain Name Use”, does not appear to describe why the domain name should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith.

Please note that paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy and paragraph 3(b)(ix)(3) of the Rules require a complainant to describe why the domain name(s) should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith.

(2) The Complaint has not been signed (in any electronic format) by the Complainant or its authorized representative, as required by Rules, Paragraph 3(b)(xiv).

Unless the deficiency specified above are cured within five (5) calendar days, March 24, 2012, of the date of this notification, in accordance with Rules, Paragraph 4(b), your Complaint will be deemed withdrawn, without prejudice to the submission of a new Complaint by you.'

I think I can hang my hat on this part: 'Please note that paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy and paragraph 3(b)(ix)(3) of the Rules require a complainant to describe why the domain name(s) should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith.'

Now please tell me how I REGISTERED saveme.com in Bad Faith in 1996? He can't. And so on this single point alone he will lose. 'USED and REGISTERED' are the keys. Of course that is only one set of keys. There will be a multitude of reasons his claim will be denied!

3/24/2012 UPDATE

4/25/2012 UPDATE: Yesterday we filed and published our official legal response to this suit. You can read the contents at: http://www.erealestate.com/saveme.htm